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Tweetstorm: Bitcoin’s 10 Year Anniversary

2 minute read

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Tweetstorm: Bitcoin’s 10 Year Anniversary

By Vijay Boyapati

Posted January 2, 2019

  1. 10 years ago today, in an unknown location, a mysterious figure whose identity is still unknown, tapped a key on his keyboard, spurring his CPU into action. In doing so, Satoshi reified his vision for a decentralized digital cash that he’d published 3 months earlier.
  2. The fan in his computer began spinning to keep the CPU, burning from the burden of work it had been given, from overheating. The CPU in Satoshi’s computer was searching for a special pattern, much like a digital needle in a haystack, that would secure #Bitcoin’s first block.
  3. Here is that needle:
1

0x000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f

It is the hash of Bitcoin’s “Genesis Block”, which created the first 50 bitcoins ever to be mined (by a quirk of Bitcoin’s protocol these 50 bitcoins can never be spent).

  1. With a brilliant leap of imagination, Satoshi had done what no one else had been able to do, and which many thought impossible. He had ingeniously incorporated @adam3us’s Hashcash design as a way of securing transactions on a network not controlled by anyone.
  2. By burning energy in search of digital needles-in-haystacks, Satoshi’s proof-of-work design allowed, for the first time ever, scarcity to be brought to the digital realm: Vijay tweet
  3. Since the creation of Bitcoin’s genesis block on January 3rd, 2009 at 6:15pm (GMT), the Bitcoin network has seen the steady and remarkably reliable creation of blocks for a decade, allowing millions of people to store and transfer value without let or hindrance.
  4. While many are obsessed with making price predictions about #Bitcoin in 2019, one thing we can actually predict with high certainty is that Bitcoin blocks will continue to be created approximately every 10 minutes with remarkable reliability.
  5. As the Bitcoin network continues to function reliably well into the next decade, there will be near-universal confidence that it will be available forever, much as people believe the Internet is a permanent feature of the modern world.
  6. Slowly but inexorably the world’s population will come to recognize the benefit of opting out of the status quo monetary order and returning to a world of true individual financial sovereignty.
  7. 10 years hence we will look back at the now 20 year old Genesis Block and recognize its creation as the beginning of a new monetary epoch. With the tap of a key on his keyboard Satoshi set in motion a sequence of events that set our world financially free.

Addendum: If you’re interested in learning more about the genesis block I highly recommend the fantastic 2013 post by the brilliant @SDLerner .